An End tst-2

by Paul Evan Hughes

  “Excuse me?”

  She turned and looked into him then, those engulfing, all-encompassing eyes that reached out at her, and she felt the touch for the first time, the touch of those exposed to the creature at the center of the world. He was in bloodied battle dress, dirt-caked face the perfect canvas upon which his blue-white eyes were painted.

  She was horrified to find her voice locked up just as her hands often would, and she stumbled over nonsense syllables before she finally found her eloquence again. “What?”

  He grinned. He was holding something in his hand, two somethings that she identified as envelopes. Letters. Dirty white envelopes held in outstretched soldier grasp.

  “I’m sorry, but…Could you mail these for me? I don’t know if—”

  The concussion of the explosion threw them both to the ground as shrapnel tore apart the storefront beside them. The transport that had been driving by had been hit by a rocket. Helen was screaming, her eyes useless because of warm liquid copper pouring into them from a gash on her forehead. Other transports screeched to a halt, able-bodied soldiers pouring out, weapons raking the building from which the rocket had been fired. Another explosion down the street, another transport torn apart before the sniper was dispatched.

  He helped her to her feet, wiped the blood from her eyes, wiped matted hair back from her face. She smiled through the shock, and he returned in kind.

  “Let’s get that wound taken care of.”

  She reached down, picked up the blood-spattered letters. “I’ll—I’ll mail them as soon as—”

  He took the letters from her, wadded them up, threw them into the street, into the tumult of soldiers and fire and corpses.

  “Let’s get that wound taken care of.”

  The street was a tumult of activity in the aftermath of the rocket attack. The trucks had stopped rolling along its length, now mostly abandoned as the boys from the war searched the building from which the sniper had struck. His body was thrown from the window and made a hideous splash of vitality on the pavement below.

  Helen wiped the blood from her eyes, wiped, kept wiping. The young man with the letters was holding her up, her legs threatening to buckle with each hesitant breath she took. Shouts, gunfire, the world becoming confusion. She wanted to sleep, but he held her.

  “Medic!” She heard him shout from somewhere out there, somewhere that was on fire and silver. She also heard the barked reply that alluded to forces first, civilians second if ever. He held her, held her up, and her eyes swung back, forth, back in an arc that she could not control, finally settling on a vision from across the street, a man with a wound not unlike her own, extending a pistol and

  firing three times, the satisfying ratcheting click shuddering through his outstretched and locked arm as nickel needles tore through the mind and soul but mostly the skull of the sniper’s wife. She fell to the sidewalk, lifeblood a geyser that went well with some child’s chalk Picasso attempt, washing over it and dissolving that morning’s pre-lunch activity.

  Jean Reynald turned the gun to the two children, the older boy holding his brother before him, their faces tear-wet and blank at the sight of impending end. He could dispatch them both with one shot, the way they were standing. He could have, and he should have, but he did not. He holstered his weapon.

  “Take them in. Send them up.”

  He noted with a disconcerting satisfaction the widening of the older boy’s eyes as he heard his fate. He seemed to grasp the younger boy even tighter, and the younger boy responded by crying loudly, confused and alone and about to be sent to the stars.

  Reynald surveyed the city street before him, soldiers running hither and thither, civilians peering from doorways and storefronts and more cautiously from apartment windows on the second third eighth seventeenth floors. Men were talking to him, but he was not listening. The medic was trying to press a bandage to his head, but he did not feel it. He saw his second Windham across the street, tending to a wounded civilian girl. He saw the remains of the shattered troop transport and its inhabitants smeared across the street. He thought it was a beautiful time of day, the street itself mostly in shadow from the angle of the sunlight, and he thought about another time and another place, somewhere he had never been but somewhere that he could always remember, a beach, kneeling in the sand, shaking his fist up at some shapeless black thing

  He reached up to where the mark should have been, that design of scar and black, and he did not find it. Closed his eyes, struggled to maintain, felt the medics lowering him to the ground, felt his hand touch the puddle of blood emanating from the head of the sniper’s wife. Tacky, viscuous, mixed with brain tissue that very well might have held the love that she had once exhibited to her husband who had killed a truckload of soldier boys.

  Reynald sank, feeling his eyes roll back, feeling not bad at all, just falling, just falling from the moment. He had maintained as long as he could on the reserve of rage that this war had given him, and now was his time to sleep for a while. He heard the medics above him, felt but did not feel the touch of bandage, the sting of needle, the injection. And all through his fall, he heard the sobbing of children, the same two children whose mother he had just shot in the face. He fell.

  What was her name? Hannah? Hannah.

  He fell.

  “I’m okay.”

  She was, or at least she thought she was okay enough, and she stood on her own, although his arms still held her close. She turned to face those eyes, saw his concern. She smiled weakly. He let go, and she bent to pick up her paperback, which was now crumpled and fluttering, a wounded bird in the street. He followed her gaze and her motion, and grabbed the book for her, turning the cover over in his hands to see what it was.

  “The Stillness Between?”

  Helen for the first time noticed the soldier’s nametag stitched onto the front of his uniform: Windham. She reached out with leather-clad hand to take the book and instead found her hand ensnared by his. He studied her small digits for a moment, his grasp gentle, for he knew what he would find already. Without a word, he pulled back the leather and found the wrist beneath just now beginning to show the silver. Helen stared resolutely at the sidewalk, her breath coming fast. She appeared to be on the verge of sobbing. Windham let go of her hand.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I—I should go, I’m sorry. I have to—”

  “Stop. Don’t go.”

  She pulled the cuff of her right glove back over the offending dust of metal. This was it. No more chance of hiding.

  Windham looked around at the nearby soldiers, looked back into Helen’s eyes.

  “Listen. I’m not going to tell anyone. It’s okay. It’s everywhere now. There’s nothing we can do to contain it.”

  “You’re just—”

  “No. We can’t do anything about it. The war’s over.”

  Helen inhaled sharply, looked around in disbelief. “You won’t tell anyone?”

  Windham smiled. “The war’s over. You’re safe now.”

  She exhaled with a hesitant relief. She did not trust him, although she so wanted to.

  “Come on.” He reached out, put his hand on her shoulder. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Helen frowned. “But won’t you—”

  “The war’s over. Fuck it.” His grin was contagious, and they walked away from that street and that life and into a future of silver and stars and black.

  It was a time of rain and the coffee was awful on that day that he asked her to marry him after a torrid courtship of six months. The link was blaring footage from the peace accords at the United World building, President Jennings waving enthusiastically to the billions of viewers as he in essence signed away control of the planet to the creature that lurked within.

  The noon crowd was sparse in the coffee house, and he saw her sitting near the back, at a window, that battered copy of “The Stillness Between” in her hands. He brushed the rain from his leather sleeves, smoothed back his hair as he navigat
ed through the maze of tables and pseudo-intellectuals reading and discussing and trying to be human in these dying days.

  Windham motioned to the young girl behind the counter, and she poured his usual: coffee, black. None of that fancy shit. The coffee was muddy in color, taste, and texture, but it was coffee.

  He gently grasped the cup and turned to walk to Helen, still engrossed in that book that held far too many memories of that day when he had gained her but lost Reynald. A newspaper fluttered down from a table before him as someone opened the door to the shop, and an unexpected gust of wind blew in, upsetting anything without enough mass to resist its displacement. Helen looked up then, at the sound of the newspaper lazily redecorating the floor. She smiled at Windham, looked beyond him as a man loudly called out

  “Maggie!”

  The woman who was in the doorway turned, came back in. They continued talking, but too quietly to distinguish from the background murmur of poets and prophets. Helen smiled because the doorway woman smiled, and she knew everything was going to be all right for them.

  “Helen.”

  She stood to embrace him, not minding at all the wetness of his jacket, his hair. She kissed him on the cheek, this tall sweet man. His embrace enveloped and reassured and gave her all she needed to keep going for a while. The President babbled on the link about what the future held for the citizens of Planet One, but she didn’t care. She had her Windham. They sat at the window table, the cold northern skies throwing themselves against the surface of their world in the form of tears.

  “How was he today?”

  Windham shook his head, took another sip of mud. Such sadness in his eyes. She knew that Reynald was a father to him, and the pain of losing him to that which they could never understand must have been unbearable.

  “Jean is okay. He’s walking again. They have a room where he can look outside, a big room with windows everywhere. There’s a lawn that stretches down to the river.”

  She reached out, her gloved hand gently, painfully resting on top of his. He carefully patted it, and her eyes smiled at him before her lips even attempted the act.

  “He still has the dreams.”

  Her smile faded, a faint fear clouding her face. She unconsciously withdrew her hands, pulled the gloves a little tighter over the silver that was consuming her. There was laughter from across the shop, the hearty laughter of two people finally getting to know one another, or geting to know one another again, after a long absense. She heard the laughing voice of the doorway woman, an Irish brogue if ever she had heard one: “I’ve had the same dream!” That statement chilled Helen to the bone.

  “Helen?”

  She smiled for him, and he returned the gesture in kind. He leaned in over the table, and she did the same. They were within kissing distance, eyes locked, the stillness between them electric and horrible and yearning to be breached. He reached out, hand on the side of her face, smoothing back through hair simple hair that she wore down, not tied back, straight, not curled into a tangle, the hand brushing against the silver patterns that were already appearing on her scalp. She inhaled sharply at that contact, so intimate, so impossible. His eyes remained locked on hers until they closed and he swooped in, kissed her cheek.

  “And I know it will be a great sacrifice for all of us, but it is something that we as a nation, as a world, as a species, must do.”

  She searched for meaning in the silence that hung between them, and found it as Windham pulled back, cheeks flushed with emotion that found clarity in the actions of his hands, large hands, gentle hands, hands that reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a velvet-covered box that could only contain one thing.

  “Helen—”

  “It will be a time of great sacrifice for our world, but we cannot allow these acts to continue.”

  “—will you be mine?”

  “We will take this jihad to the stars, and make them suffer the consequences of creating this horrible disease.”

  They escaped then, the tears that had threatened to overflow since his kiss had left her cheek. She stood and leaned over the table, threw her arms around him. “Of course, of course, of course!” she managed to blurt out and then more kisses and for once, all was well. When she finally opened her eyes, blinking back the tears, she saw the silent gaze of the doorway woman and her companion. Those eyes…

  Maggie turned back to the author whose book sat before them on the table, dimples activated by smile. She looked into his eyes, noticed for the first time their absolute lack of definable color, that almost-silver, and the deep lines carved into his young face by his old soul.

  “They’re getting married.”

  “Yeah.”

  “They’ll do okay.”

  “How do you know?”

  The young couple walked by, the girl’s new ring prominently displayed, a humble ring placed on a small hand that

  silver

  glinted with the affliction. Maggie saw the black leather glove that would have hidden the silver from the judgmental gaze of the coffee shop patrons now held by the ringless hand. They opened the door, let another assault of wind and rain into the shop, and walked into the torrent, arms around each other.

  “Maggie? How do you know?”

  She shrugged her shoulders, took a sip of coffee, set the cup back down. She gently touched the cover of the book on the table.

  “I contain multitudes.”

  It was a time of rain.

  Hunter mumbled in his sleep, and Helen snapped awake, heart echoing in the small room. She had fallen asleep while watching him doze off in the faint light coming from the window, slithering through the blinds, Venetian blinds, named after a city that had been wiped from the map decades or centuries ago. Hunter turned over in bed, and Helen got to her feet, old bones that were not even old creaking and aching.

  Into the living room, navigating by memory and that little something extra that set her apart from most of the remaining populace, she stood at the window, pulled back the heavy drapes. A dim sun was straining to crawl over the eastern horizon, which placed her side of the building and her entire view in half-hearted gray. She looked to the west and was startled to see the orbital defense weapon lifting from within the earth, great waves of ocean trembling down its surface as it groaned into the sky, barrel canted to the west.

  Helen ran back into Hunter’s room, threw his sheets back, lifted his confused and protesting form from the cocoon of sleep. She could hear the weapon’s firing cycle begin, could feel the rumble beneath her feet, the resonance sparking a headache to life behind her eyes.

  “Mommy?”

  “Have to go outside, baby. Have to get out of here.”

  “Why?”

  “The gun, baby.”

  The morning air was not quite frigid, but close enough. Helen held her son close as he shivered against her. She ran down the front steps, outside into the dirty old parking lot where her bare feet flew over the shifting field of sharp gravel shards. She could feel the small incisions on her naked flesh, blood resonating out through feet, teeth shaking out of her gums, gooseflesh yearning through silver underpinnings and she knew then that she was screaming, had been screaming. She could feel it, could see Hunter’s own mouth open as wide as it could be, tears streaming down his face, and she fell. The roar of the weapon built into the earth encompassed all that she knew, all that she could know.

  Time bent, the sky fell, the weapon fired, a mother shielded her son from a wave of fire as buildings shook from their foundations and the dreams of an unfortunate dawn populace were shattered apart.

  The weapon fired. Again. Again. Helen closed her eyes, but could still see the blasts rising into the sky, out of the atmosphere, traveling somewhere out there where her husband would die, somewhere out where the war was being fought, where the jihad was burning planets, where her son would soon go.

  Helen screamed and couldn’t stop.

  The weapon kept firing.

  Again.

  Ag
ain.

  “Again?”

  “He likes it outside. Just sits there and stares at the river all day.”

  “Okay. Would you mind if I went down there?”

  “No, of course not, Mr. Reynald.”

  “Windham.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Mr. Windham.”

  “Oh, sorry. I thought you were his—”

  “No, not his son. Just an old friend.”

  Windham smiled at the young nurse, whose face was rouged with embarrassment. He noticed her not-so-subtle glance at the silver band he now wore prominently on his left ring finger. He was in civilian clothing today. If he had worn his military uniform, she would not have been so casual with him. These days, civilians were seldom casual, seldom comfortable around the military.

  “We served together in the war.”

  Again, emotion revealed through subtle shifts in eye placement. Lids ever-so-slightly widen, a short, almost inaudible inhalation.

  “I’m sorry, sir. Please, feel free to go see him outside, if you would like, sir.”

  “Thank you.” Quiet and friendly, and as he passed by the nurse, he reassuringly touched her arm. He felt a brush of her mind, just a little tugging oh my god what have i said what if he as he walked away. The machines were beginning to work, as he knew they would in time.

  The corridor was long, dark, doors on either side that he felt guilty passing, for each and every room held a man just like Reynald, and he knew that more than likely, Reynald was the only man in this place that was allowed visitors. He did not look to the side, but stared straight ahead, where a door, flanked by armed officers on each side, permit entrance to the back lawn. He saluted to the officers, who opened the doors for him.

  Gray day. They were always gray days now. Crisp wind blowing leaves over the steps, that scratching sound they made on their journey jarring something loose in Windham’s mind, a glimpse of some future contained behind tall iron bars and a force shield.

  The lawn stretched out, sloped off, descended to the riverbank eventually, but a stone and force wall protected the patients from the outside and the outside from the patients. From the bottom of the slope, the river was invisible. Windham found his old friend sitting in his wheelchair at the place on the lawn just before it dropped away, still permitting view of the river, but also providing some distance between the compound and those wishing to escape it for a while.